Google announces €1.5m in scholarships for AI students

Google has unveiled a new €1.5 million scholarship fund to help support students from underrepresented communities in the area of AI.

The scholarships will be targeted at people with disabilities, women in STEM, first generation students with no history of third-level education in the family and members of the Traveller community, and can be used for undergraduate courses where Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital safety are core elements of the course.

The new fund will be backed by Google.org and support scholarships for students at universities around Ireland through a grant to the Insight SFI Research Centre for Data Analytics at Dublin City University.

The move is part of the company’s celebration of its 20 year anniversary in Ireland, which also saw Google open the first phase of its Bolands Mills development. The new building will also house the company’s engineering hub, with 1,000 engineers moving into the offices upon their completion.

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Google first opened in Ireland with five employees in 2003, and has since grown to become Google’s EMEA headquarters, employing more than 9,000 people.

“Over the past two decades Ireland has become one of the world digital leaders at the heart of Europe and as Ireland has grown, Google has grown in Ireland,” said Lorraine Twohill, chief marketing officer of Google. “We are immensely proud of the strength of our team here and the work they are doing in driving Google’s future.”

The opening of the new building was welcomed by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

“The opening of this historic building is good for Dublin’s civic heritage and represents a big milestone for Google Ireland driven from their innovative new centre of engineering,” he said. “This new centre of excellence, alongside the scholarship fund announced today, will help cement Ireland’s role as a digital leader at the heart of European and global digital developments.”

The building has been transformed into a collaborative space for Google, with the ground floor opening to the public next year. Among the plans for the site are retail units, a food market, public squares and community spaces.

“The Flour Mills building is steeped in history and our real estate teams have worked hard to ensure we respect its past, while equipping it for the future,” Adaire Fox-Martin, Head of Google Ireland, said.

“We want Bolands Mills to be an inclusive space that brings communities together: Google employees, our neighbours and visitors alike.”

Google acquired the landmark buildings, then known as Bolands Quay, in 2018 in a deal worth about €300 million. It includes a number of apartments that the tech giant said it would hand over to a not-for-profit housing body to manage, targeting those who work in jobs considered critical for the wellbeing of the community.